Where do Ideas come from?

I’d like to share with you this classic philosophical debate on the problem of the origin of idea, “Where do ideas come from?”  The battle of wits has been fought by the different camps of philosophers, namely rationalism, empiricism and pragmatism.  In this article, my focus will be on the three schools of thought.  But before going straight to the main topic, let me say a few words about the word, Philosophy.

Philosophy

Philosophy is something unique in the culture of ancient Greeks.  Whereas some other groups of people in the Mediterranean Region in ancient times were religious such as the Egyptians and Jews, the Greek people were philosophical.  By philosophy, I mean “the unique way of the Greeks to search for the ultimate principle of everything that exists in aid only of natural reason”.  Thus, philosophy is a kind of search for one single principle to explain everything that is, without any resort to mythical or religious explanation.  Thales, for example, the first Greek philosopher, claimed that water (single principle) is an element common to all existing things; therefore everything comes from water, even all forms of life begin in water.  This is a classic example of a philosopher’s job and a philosophical principle. 

“Water” is an idea.  Yet we don’t exactly know if Thales meant the word in exactly the same way we do today.  He might have thought of other liquid form of substance or elements, which he attributed as “water,” say gasoline, blood, or primal soup.  Because of this nature of “idea,” philosophers have begun asking, “Where does an idea come from?”

Rationalism

Rationalism basically claims that true knowledge/idea comes from pure reason alone.  There are two different versions of rationalism: Platonic and Cartesian.  Both versions are fathered by two great rationalists in history: Plato and Rene Descartes, respectively.

Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher, claimed that perception is not a reliable source of knowledge, for two reasons: (1) perception can be deceived, and (2) the nature of external things –things received by perception, keeps on changing, thus, not also reliable.  How could one rely on the sensible material things, which constantly change?  Truth is unchanging/ immutable.  Thus, it cannot be founded on something that changes, like the sensible things and human perception.  To illustrate my point, let me cite this example.  When I drink a glass of soft drinks, what passes my senses are as follows: (a) a liquid black substance (if it is colored black), (b) when holding the bottle, I sense that it’s wet and cold, (c) when I sip it, I feel that it’s delicious, refreshing and addictive.  Based on the data of my senses of drinking a bottle of soft drinks, I must have come to a conclusion that drinking soft drinks is good –good to the body and good to drink daily.  However, what I have not understood is that a bottle of soft drinks contains much sugar which is not good for health.  Sugar content of the drinks is not something perceivable but only seen/ understood by one’s reason.  In this simple illustration, we can say that perception is most of the time deceptive, thus unreliable source of knowledge.  It is for this same reason that Plato was looking for a principle of knowledge, which is immutable, unchanging.  In “theory,” he found it in the World of Ideas, which is only accessible by pure reason, not by the senses.  In conclusion, Plato claims that human senses are not reliable source of knowledge.  It is pure reason, which is the sole source of true knowledge since it has access to the world of ideas.

Rene Descartes, a French rationalist, somehow modified the claim of Plato.  As a rationalist, Descartes claims that a “clear and distinct idea” must come from pure reason alone.  But as a modern philosopher, he disregards Plato’s idea of the World of Ideas –the source immutable truths and accessible only by reason.  The world of ideas is non-existent.  In neglecting it, he encounters the same problem of where to ground any immutable truths.  He is, however, able to counter the dilemma by positing that human reason itself has capacity to “generate a clear and distinct idea” without being tainted by experience. 

Empiricism

Empiricism claims the exact opposite of rationalism.  The source of true knowledge is not reason but experience.  To illustrate the problem, let me cite the experience of Newton of a falling apple.  Newton, an English physicist, is attributed to have theorized the gravitational force of the Earth.  While taking a vacation in the mountainous region of England, he happened to lie down underneath the apple tree.  Suddenly, a fruit of the tree fell down.  With that experience of a falling apple, questions were popping out in his mind, “Why is it that the apple fruit doesn’t remain at rest, or why it doesn’t go upward, or westward, or eastward, or in any direction but downward?”  In all of those questions, he came out with one answer: “That there must be a force that pulls the apple down.”  This law is now known today as the “gravitational pull or force.”  In relation to idealism and empiricism, maybe we can ask the question, “Where does the idea of gravitational force come from?”  Is it coming from the experience of the falling apple or from pure reasoning of Newton?  Of course, the answer is clear: (a) if you are a rationalist, your answer must be “pure reason,” (b) if you are an empiricist, your answer is “experience.”

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is another school of thought that does not bother to answer the question.  What matters for the pragmatic philosophers is not so much of the grounding of true knowledge but on the effectiveness of the idea.  Regardless of the content of an idea (whether reason or experience), as long as that idea works in a certain situation, that idea must be true.  In other words, the truthfulness of an idea is not measured by reason or experience but how it is effective or how it works and enables to produce benefits. 

The battle of wits is still on.  None is declared a winner, yet!